for Josh Olsen, who also felt the power
If I'd known to look for you
I certainly would have;
I was all eyes and ears then
Big blue eyes in a round white head
Hair too long so the people of the town would say
"girl" or "she" when I helped Todd deliver papers
Did they mean something by it, I don't know
I missed most of the signals there
Even though I was looking and listening
My way through Childhood,
North America, 1991
Listening for the car in the driveway,
The feet on the stairs
Looking at Sassy, The Wrestler, YM,
Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Looking at the backs of Freddy, Jason, Jean-Claude, Action Jackson and the Toolbox Murders, Saturday afternoon at Village Video
Too violent to bring home.
Looking at the banner hung for the men's league tournament, at the arena "GO RED MEN GO"
I knew that was wrong, I had that one pegged
My dad said no, it's different
when someone does it for themselves
I don't know where the RED MEN came from, exactly, or where they went;
Curve Lake, Alderville, Kahnestake.
I didn't study them like I did the license plates at the ballfields midsummer; Indiana, Illinois, Michigan.
So far from me, could you have made that trip?
From West Memphis, Arkansas?
Could I have missed you, towering over King Street in right field or grinning manically above the aisles at Mac's Milk as I went in for a cream soda Froster, and a black and white glimpse of
Abdullah the Butcher
But that was before I knew about your softball sojourns
Your firings and disappearances
And I won't even mention the thing about the scissors
I just knew a name, date, height and weight
hometown in the magazines and the impossible spit curled god on TV
Acting like you let Hulk Hogan pretend to be your friend but you knew, you were gonna choke him eraser red first chance
You didn't miss the signals
I didn't even know you could have been there, dodging Vince or Bill Watts
I might have had a whole different picture of what could have belonged there and then
But I already knew I didn't.
Jeremy Milloy is a writer and historian from Peterborough, Ontario. He now lives in Michigan, where he is trying not to work himself into a shoot.
One Fall Review 